Finding Happiness in God's Blessings

friends

This past weekend was EVENTFUL! Literally! Paul and I headed up to Tallahassee on Friday, where we met our friends for dinner. Then Saturday morning was my first baby shower, that night we headed to an engagement party, and on Sunday we headed to a gender reveal party! So much excitement for one weekend!

On Saturday morning, my sister hosted a baby shower for me with some help from my mom and a couple of my friends. When I walked into her house, I cried… on more than 1 occasion. I think the tears were triggered, because 1. This is happening. I am really having a baby, and I never thought I’d see the day where someone was throwing a baby shower for me! 2. It was perfect. The entire house looked like a party you see on Pinterest, but it never works out that way when you do it yourself. The pictures don’t do it justice, because these are off my iPhone, because I’m just too impatient to wait for my sister to send me the pretty ones.

Let’s pause for a second to admire this cake… have you ever seen a more beautiful cake?! My brother’s girlfriend has become the family cake baker/decorator, because I mean obviously she’s good at it! Not to mention, once we cut into the cake, she had each layer a darker shade to match the outside of the cake. Perfection.

Now that we’ve admired the cake, let’s take a look at this onesie. My sister is the crafty one of the family. I draw stick figures, she makes things. Lots of things that are always adorable. So I saw this onesie, and I thought she bought it from a store or off Etsy… No, she made it. Of course she did. So I see the onesie, and I cry. Again. It’s a little hard to read, but it says, “This little light of mine”.

Paul and I received so many amazing gifts for Aubrey, and we were so blown away by everyone’s generosity. We are so lucky to have such amazing people in our lives, but I think Aubrey is even more lucky, because she isn’t even here yet, and already she is loved more than she knows. We cannot thank everyone enough for everything! We love you all!

My niece, Kennedy, might just be the best present helper. She was so excited to rip the paper off, I don’t even think she ever saw what was wrapped. She just loves tearing into the presents. At one point, my sister said, “Kennedy, let Auntie open her present okay?”. Kennedy looked right at me, and in the sweetest voice said, “MAY I help you open the present?”… Not can I, but may I! There is no way I can say no to that! That little girl is just adorable.

I’ve mentioned before that 3 of my friends in Tallahassee are also expecting. I think it is so exciting that there are 4 little summer babies all due within 2 months of each other! Here are three of us, but Whitney had already left and we missed the photo op! All three of them are having little boys, and Aubrey is the only little girl of the group! It’s so fun getting to experience pregnancy for the first time, with 3 other first time moms. I just wish we lived close to them all again!

It was such a beautiful and fun baby shower. I couldn’t have asked for anything more! It was so great to see all my friends in Tallahassee, and to celebrate the precious little girl growing inside of me! Thank you so much to everyone!

I’ve talked before about how awesome my office is, but this really is just is the cherry on top. The Thursday before Paul and I moved, we had planned a final girls happy hour for me to basically hang out with everyone one last time before the move. As 5 o’clock neared, my best friend Malarie, came “pouting” over to me. She was stressed out and wanted to go home. I kind of laughed at her, and she asked if it was 5 yet. I told her almost, and she said well let’s just go. So I shut down my computer and we headed out of the office…

I walked out of the office to see all the girls in front of a limo! We piled in and headed on over for happy hour with appetizers and drinks. The girls in my office are more than just coworkers, they’re my friends, and it was so fun to spend one last night hanging out with everyone!

It was just the sweetest gesture, and I know everyone was in on it, but I also know that this has Malarie’s name all over it. She is so sweet and thoughtful, and has always gone out of her way to make things special for me. I’m so lucky to have a friend like her, and I miss her like crazy.

Two weeks from today, Paul and I will be heading down to Orlando for our official move. The thing we’ve been discussing for weeks now is getting closer, and it’s finally starting to feel real. We’ve gradually started packing, and our living room is slowly being overtaken with boxes. In case you didn’t know, packing sucks.

BITTER

Over my last 5 years in Tallahassee, I have met some amazing friends. Many of them I’ve met through my jobs, but they have made me love living here even more. Many of us are in the same spot in life, or somewhere close: young, married, no kids. It’s so nice having friends in the same place in life. We don’t all have to hang out everyday, but when we get together it is an amazing time. I have truly been blessed by some amazing people. People who give me advice, who care about me, who support me, who share my beliefs, who respect and encourage me. Leaving these people will not be easy. Thankfully for me, I will be back in Tallahassee often, and they all know our home is open to them anytime they are in Orlando!

SWEET

One of the more exciting parts of moving is that Paul and I will be able to meet people together. My hope is that we will get plugged in to a church, and we will meet people that way. The hard part about this is that we will both be working from home. Not being in an office will make it a little more challenging for us to me people. I am thankful that Paul and I do have some friends in the area already, and we are looking forward to being able to spend time with them.

Moving to a new city is an adventure. It’s scary and exciting all at the same time, and it’s only 13 days away…

After the wedding Paul and I went to in St. Petersburg we packed up and hit the road back to Tallahasse, but only long enough to pack for the week and pick up our “children”. Then we headed to Virginia to spend the week with his family. After a total of about 15 hours we made it around 3:30am!

Paul’s parents live on a gorgeous lake, but I’ve never actually been able to experience the fun of living on a lake. Every time we seem to visit it is FREEZING… at least it’s freezing for this Florida girl! Last year we planned to go up for the 4th of July so this trip was a LONG time coming!!

Not only did we have a blast at the lake, but our dogs did too… Laila really needs to live at the lake because she is so incredibly obsessed with it. You can’t keep her out of the water! Even Brody and Daisy love the lake… not so much the swimming aspect, but the amount of room they have to roam around! They just chase each other around the backyard and scope out the area. The first time we went up there I was terrified they would run away, but I think with that much room to run they are afraid to roam too far away so it is kind of perfect!

We squeezed in a super quick trip to Petersburg to visit a long time friend of Paul’s that I know all about but we only met briefly during our wedding. It was great to actually get to talk to Daniel, his girlfriend, Laura, and their adorable son, Mike – even though I felt like I already knew them from Paul and Facebook. Then we rushed back to make it in time to a baseball game where his brother coaches. (PS can we look at how good Paul looks with a baby?! :))

We spent the 4th of July on the lake and then headed to a BBQ and a great spot to watch fireworks… and I took zero pictures. It was a great week and I love going to visit his our family. I’ve been lucky enough to not only be blessed with a great husband, but great in-laws who have welcomed me into their family with open arms and I can’t thank them for it enough!

Based on the title of this blog post I have a feeling I may have an aunt or two that may think this is a pregnancy announcement… Spoiler alert! It’s not – not yet anyways 🙂

Yesterday was Paul’s birthday – and ironically, the first birthday of his that we have ever spent together! Apparently he likes to plan to be out of town for his birthday, and then I don’t get to do any fun stuff with him to celebrate! This year I was so excited to get to actually spend it with him! When I asked him what he wanted to do I wasn’t huge fan of his response… He wanted to have a cookout with friends at our house. It doesn’t seem like there is anything wrong with that idea – it’s actually pretty great, but our house is not the house for entertaining.

We have no parking – Our street is really narrow and if you park in the road – the person across the street will probably hit your car when they try to back out of their driveway. We have a couch and a kitchen table – seating for 7. If people don’t mind getting up close and personal. Our backyard is dirt, and our kitchen is tiny. Really not the house that was built to entertain a bunch of friends. So he created a new plan which was dinner out with his friends for his birthday and he proceeded to invite people.

Meanwhile, on Friday night we were out with our friends and the girls were asking me what we were doing. I was explaining how he wanted to have a cookout, but our house isn’t made for that yada yada yada. Our friend, Danielle, then volunteered her house for us to throw him a party (Bless her heart – how sweet is she!!). Leave it to a group of girls to immediately start planning a party for 2 days later!

Plan of action:

Figure out food (dividied up between 4 girls – easy peasy)

Invite people (So easy thanks so social media and private event pages)

Get Paul there without spilling the beans…

I told Paul that Danielle and her husband, Justin, were having a cookout for the Heat game (expecting him to be all in as usual) and his response was “Tell them maybe – I wanted to do something with you on Sunday for my brithday”… GREAT! That was not the response I expected. So I kind of blew off what he wanted to do for his birthday plans and changed around the schedule he had in his head in hopes that it would work and he wouldn’t put up a fight – thankfully he didn’t!

Sunday night we got dressed and headed over to Danielle and Justin’s for the game and I told him it was all of my friends from work that would be there. While we are driving there he was telling me all about how the guys were giving him crap for not hanging out and watching the game with them, while I stiffled laughs and smiles. When we got to the house I had Paul go in front of me and when Justin opened the door everyone jumped out and yelled “SURPRISE!” (obviously). Paul was definitely surprised – but he looked ANGRY! Come to find out that was Paul’s confused face.

The night was awesome and I really can’t thank our friends enough for all of their help and last minute efforts for pulling off the surprise and making his birthday special. Not to mention we finally got to spend it together! I definitely won wife points that night, but then I lost them for taking basically zero pictures. Wife fail.

Hey All! I had to write a blog post for my office and the link is below! Do me a huge favor and click on it to help my team 🙂 (there is a point system and all sorts of craziness that plays into it) It’s short and sweet and featuring America’s favorite (or maybe just my favorite) tv show!